The Trade
by BloodyKangaroo
Summary: Naruto chooses to ignore the Shadow Clone Technique due to his lack of skill with clones. He discovers a way to meet a being called truth and cuts a deal, one Nine Tailed Fox in exchange for unparalleled knowledge of the nature of chakra.


Disclaimer I do not own Naruto.

This is based on the challenge by nobody102.

A.U. Chakra works a bit differently but everyone thinks it works the same as in canon.

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Naruto sat in a forest with large scroll lay open before him. He was sliding along the roll of paper and scanned the contents with in and saw the list of techniques. He was sliding along one by one as each technique was far beyond his understanding or that he was completely unwilling to understand. He moved until he finally arrived at something worth examining.

"Summoning technique: The gate of truth." He read aloud. "What the hell is that supposed to be?"

He stared at its entry just long enough to find out that it only need a few hand seals and a chakra. He needed on a little effort to it and if there was any move that he could make work it was this and there wasn't any mention of messing with the dead. A few moves to practice the three signs to make it work.

"Monkey, bird, horse." He muttered as he flipped through the signs and forced all the chakra he could into the technique.

At first nothing happened. Then slowly the air began to flicker and a central point of darkness began to focus his vision. He looked into it and the world suddenly turned white around him. Everywhere around him was just a blank white void except for a large black door engraved with a large eye. The eye had three concentric rings, each containing three tomoe per ring. Underneath it were nine other tomoe, set in columns of three tomoe per column.

"What happened?! Where am I?! What's that creepy looking gate?!" The blond shouted rapidly as he freaked out. "Oh god I knew I shouldn't have eaten that expired ramen!"

Naruto looked around in terror as he wondered exactly what could happen to instant noodles to trigger this level of hallucination. He only barely registered at first that something besides the gate was off about the place. It took him several seconds to place it. There was a weird pattern of what looked to be a black dust forming a circle in the air in front of him. He watched as some of the cloud descended and slowly formed into a generic, featureless, boy who existed only as the outline surrounding a portion of the void.

"Who, or what, are you?" Naruto demanded angrily.

"I am god, or the world, or truth." The manifest void spoke. He pointed slowly at Naruto and added. "And I am you."

This complex explanation flew right over his head. "And what do you want?"

"It's not what I want but what you want." The many named being replied. "After all you came to me, young jinchuuriki."

"What's a jinchuuriki?" Naruto asked.

"A human who contains one of the nine tailed beasts." Truth replied.

"Tailed beasts?" Naruto once again said in confusion failing to notice the door behind him slowly opening.

"Nine chakra constructs forged of the power of the Shinju's battle form." Truth answered. "The nine tailed beast to be specific."

Naruto froze up as he heard the answer to his question. It wasn't hard even for him to put together what he could mean by nine tailed beast. He had only ever heard of a single nine tailed creature in existence, the nine tailed fox that attacked Konoha twelve years ago.

"What do you mean? the Fourth Hokage killed the nine tails, didn't he?" The boy asked confused and distraught.

"One cannot kill a Tailed Beast." Truth answered matter of factly. "They simple break and reform."

"So I have the Nine Tails stuck in me and no one told me!" Naruto shouted angrily.

"Yes." Truth answered simply.

"And who knew about it?" Naruto asked still seething.

"Everyone over twenty and a majority of all people between the ages of 16 and 19." Truth answered.

"Does that have anything to do with why they all glare at me?" Naruto asked.

"Yes." Truth said.

Naruto clenched his fist and punched it into his palm.

"So do you not want it?" Truth asked.

"No!" Naruto shouted. "I don't want it!"

"Then how about a little deal. you came here for a reason." Truth said. "You seek the knowledge to be shinobi. I can give to you in exchange for the source of your troubles."

Naruto answered without a second's hesitation. "Yes."

By this point, the door behind Naruto had fully opened and a single massive eye was staring at him from a black void inside. Hand-ended tendrils of the inky blackness surged forth and grabbed the young blond, lifting him off his feet and pulling him inside. The door shut behind him and he screamed in terror as coiled beams of ethereal light emerged from nowhere with in the darkness and crashed into his forehead. His screams of fear and anguish where soon drowned out, however, as the hands ripped open his jacket and slid his shirt from his stomach, revealing a spiral with a four pronged arc on each side. The spiral vanished and the arms pulled away an orange claw larger than Naruto himself. The claw was followed by an arm, then a large canine head and torso, soon after its legs, and finally nine enormous wildly swinging tails. Naruto was so distracted, the burning sensation in his head was completely ignored. Only after the beast was out of sight did the pain continue.

Then just as quickly as it had all happened he found himself sitting outside the door with truth standing in front of him the Nine Tails' former seal on his stomach. Naruto stared at the ground breathing heavily and sweating with a shocked expression.

"I! Am! An! Idiot!" Naruto shouted punctuating each word by smacking himself in the face with his open palm. Everything he had ever done wrong when using a chakra based technique was now blatantly obvious to him as well as one other thing. "I've been saying it wrong the entire time! Why didn't anyone ever tell me?!"

The next second he was sitting back in the clearing with the scroll still completely open and he ignored it as he stood up and formed a ram sign. He focused and with an instant later four perfect copies of Naruto simply phased into existence without an ounce of smoke. He looked at the clones eye twitching as he saw how easy it was to do all of a sudden. Everything he had done wrong on the academy three was now blatantly obvious to him and it drove him mad. If he was doing this wrong what else was he screwing up?

A few seconds later Iruka landed on the ground next to him. The scarred chuunin was breathing heavily and Naruto could tell he had been running around.

"Iruka sensei, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked.

"Looking for you! Do you realize what you've done?" Iruka shouted.

"Huh? I just did the make-up exam like Mizuki sensei said." Naruto replied confused.

"Make up exam?" Iruka asked him.

"Yeah steal the scroll and learn a technique off of it before anyone finds me." Naruto explained.

"Naruto there is no such exam." Iruka explained.

A rustling told him that someone had landed in a tree and both academy student and teacher turned to find a particular white haired chuunin with two large shuriken strapped to his back.

"Naruto give me the scroll." Mizuki said.

"Mizuki?" Iruka asked as he recovered from his heavy breathing.

Mizuki looked down at Iruka, having just realized he was there. He quickly whipped a mix of kunai and shuriken at the blond, which lead to Iruka pushing him out of the way. Naruto stared at Iruka, stunned with the scroll at his feet.

"Naruto run!" Iruka shouted to him.

Mizuki panicked, not wanting to have to try to track Naruto down. If he did, there was a chance of another patrolling shinobi might find them, and the less actual threats he had to deal with the better. He needed to get Naruto to stay still.

"Naruto, do you want to know a secret?!" Mizuki asked manically trying to hide his panic.

"What secret?" Naruto asked buying time as he went over everything he had gotten from truth that night. There had to be something that could help him out.

"The secret as to why everyone hates you." Mizuki answered with a cold sneer.

_"Think I've got something, just have to keep him talking."_ Naruto thought. He did his best to fake shock. "What?"

"Do you know the nine tailed fox that attacked the village twelve years ago?" Mizuki asked.

Naruto nodded already aware of where this was going and planning a way out.

"The Fourth Hokage fought it, but he couldn't actually kill it, so he sealed it in a newly born baby." Mizuki said pulling a shuriken subtly.

Naruto nodded again, still trying to come up with an escape plan. He had no delusion about being able to take down a chuunin with his nearly nonexistent skills.

"That baby was you, Naruto!" Mizuki shouted twirling the shuriken. "You're the Demon Fox, Naruto!"

Naruto focused his mind, readying his "plan".

"Now die, demon!" Mizuki shouted, hurling the shuriken at the blond.

Iruka tried to move to defend Naruto but was slowed by his injuries just enough that he couldn't make it. He watched helpless as the shuriken collided with Naruto. Mizuki laughed manically while Iruka stared in despair for half a second before he saw what hit the ground. A log with a single oversized shuriken sticking out of it. The two stared at the log in shock for a minute. No academy student should be able to do a substitution without even smoke. It took Mizuki a moment longer to realize that he had just failed to kill the academy dead last in one attempt.

Naruto was hidden in the bushes around them, sneaking as quietly as he could to get within striking distance of Mizuki. He had to be as close as possible before hurling his kunai and shuriken at the white haired chuunin. He could barely hit a stationary target at ten meters. A chuunin who could dodge was completely different. Naruto reached for the shuriken holster at his leg and drew a few kunai. Mizuki was back on guard twirling the second large shuriken on high alert as Iruka seemed to be severally weakened by the injuries inflicted by the storm of sharp steel that he had been hit with earlier. At least he was still alive for now but Naruto wouldn't be able to count on him for support.

Mizuki's head moved from side to sid,e scanning the forest floor, waiting for Naruto to just burst out and attack him. Naruto threw his kunai from the side on the ground. Mizuki heard the whistling but dismissed it out of hand as the shuriken he was spinning. He felt a sharp pain in his side as a single kunai passed harmlessly in front of his face and bounce off the shuriken throwing it off balance and causing him to drop it. Mizuki looked at his side and found one kunai stuck in it though thanks to his chuunin vest not far enough to be lethal.

Naruto froze in his hiding place as Mizuki stared down where the attack had come from. Mizuki took no time at all to figure out roughly where Naruto was hiding but the random scatter meant it would take longer than he could be bothered to figure out where Naruto was. Not when he could simply torch the area and either incinerate the brat of force his screaming and on fire into the open. Naruto watched as Mizuki flicked through a series of hand signs and inhaled deeply. The blond jumped to the side as a ball of fire erupted from Mizuki's mouth and set the spot he had been in a moment ago ablaze.

Naruto noticed something odd as he stared at the flames. Something in his head just clicked it but he didn't have time to stand and think about it. Mizuki descended on the blond kunai in hand and Naruto barely managed to stop himself from flying right into the blow. Several cut blond hairs drifted towards the forest floor as Naruto drew another kunai and raised it defensively. Mizuki thrust his knife towards the blond and Naruto raised his. The sound of two blades clashing echoed through the clearing.

"Well I'll say this much demon." Mizuki said in a condescending tone. "You're better than I thought. Then again I thought a toddler could kill you head on."

"Go fuck yourself!" Naruto shouted, barely holding up.

"Well there's still one thing I could tell you can't do at a glance, though." Mizuki said as he flicked his wrist, letting Naruto topple forward from his own strength.

The white haired chuunin kicked at Naruto before he could regain his balance and sent him flying. Naruto crashed into the ground and rolled as Mizuki closed on him. Naruto just barely managed to roll out of the way of a knife aimed for his throat and got back to his feet. He glared at the traitor and tried his best to think of a way out of the situation. He couldn't win, he knew that for sure by this point. His only hope was to get out of there with and get Iruka and the scroll.

Mizuki charged Naruto again and stabbed at the blond with his kunai burring itself in the log with his shuriken again. He turned back to the center of the clearing where Naruto was running for Iruka and the scroll. Mizuki hurled a kunai and Naruto jumped back to avoid being stabbed the flying blade.

Naruto glared back at Mizuki who once again started doing the same hand signs as earlier. Naruto recognized it and bolted towards the woods for cover. He jumped behind a tree as the light of a fire ball came from the other side. Naruto could feel the heat coming around the tree sweating and saw the light from behind the tree. He actually felt the skin on his arms blister from the heat and hoped it would end soon.

Mizuki stopped the technique as he felt the drain on his chakra becoming a problem. He looked at the scorched patch of forest and started a slow approach. An orange blur shot from around the side of the tree. Mizuki reached for a kunai as Naruto shot past him giving him a wide birth. Mizuki turned to attack Naruto and quickly whipped the knife at the blond which passed harmlessly through the boy.

"What the hell?" Mizuki asked. "Was that a clone?"

Mizuki saw an orange glow and felt a surge of heat coming from behind him. He turned around and saw a massive fireball flying at him already nearly right on top of him. Mizuki could only stare like a trapped deer as the fireball closed the last few feet faster than he could move.

_"How? How does this worthless brat know the Great Fireball Technique?"_ Mizuki thought as the flames consumed him. Afterwards all he could do was scream in agony as his blood vaporized, his flesh charred, and his brain was boiled.

Naruto fell backwards looking at what he had done with his newly acquired fire technique. He watched as the flames died down and saw the charred black remains that lay on the ground with what was left of his face frozen in a twisted scream of horror. Naruto dropped to his hands and knees and retched several times before hurling. The blond remained like this for several hours before a team of ANBU arrived on the scene.

One in a boar mask kneeled down next to Iruka. "He needs medical attention!"

Another in an insect like mask looked down at Mizuki, and without saying a word bent over and pulled out a scroll. While he was doing that the third member, a goat masked member, grabbed the scroll of seals. The last member in a lion mask looked down at Naruto and pressed a collar mounted radio mic.

"Area is clear, targets contained, we're reporting back. Prep the emergency room, the morgue, and a cell." Lion said.

The body vanished in a puff of smoke and the insect masked ANBU walked over. Naruto was lifted by his arms and had his hands bound by rope.

"Stay between beetle and me." Lion ordered. "You've got a lot to explain."

Naruto didn't say anything and followed as he jumped along still dazed at his first kill. Lion looked over the clearing once more before leaving. The Hokage was not going to like this, for that matter neither would Ibiki. He had to stop himself from sighing.

"This is going to be along night." He thought.

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Okay I'm using a poll and popular vote as a deciding factor in Naruto's team. And those that want an explanation of the challenge It's on my page.


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